How to survive on 1 income with a baby?

Blee88

Hi all,

Me & my partner are planning on having a baby in the future... We are trying to plan everything so we dont end up strugglig. Problem is that if we had a child, i would have to give up work for a while, we would have to deal with an extra person to feed/bathe etc ... Is there families out there that arent on 'the dole' and coping with a child? Any advice on living on one income with and what it is like? Do you get any help from council without both mum&dad being jobless?

Thank you in advance..

shegirl

Any financial help you would get would depend on the working partners income.

You would,however,if already working,be entitled to maternity pay for a period.

FBaby

You have a number of ways to look at it.

You can decide to go back to work after your you stop receiving maternty pay. Many mums do, usually because they can't afford to stay home longer with their baby.

You can wait to have a baby until you have saved enough to suplement your OH's income for however long you want to be off.

You can decide not to return to work after baby, but take on a job around your OH hours or your OH can take on extra hours.

Or you can radically change your outgoings, move to a cheaper place, sell your cars and operate under a very strict budget.

Almost all parents who can't afford the lifestyle they wish for with only one salary will fall under one of these categories.

LannieDuck

Yes, but I have a reasonable salary, so it's ok. I think how difficult it's likely to be depends on what salary you/your OH has.

Maysie

My husband works in a low paid job we get a housing benefit payment that helps with the rent and a small amount of council tax benefit. I don't work. Our area is fairly high for rent though so its hard to say if that would help you or not. Do you own your own home or rent? Tax credits top up low wages as well.

fluffnutter

Babies are pretty cheap (at least at first). You have an initial outlay with carseats, cot etc. but if you shop around and aren't too fussy you can get great bargains. After that, then, you'll only need nappies and clothes, neither of which are particularly expensive.

If you take a small amount of maternity leave, your earnings could be relatively unaffected. However, if you return to work you'll have to pay for childcare.

I took redundancy last year and now have an 11 week old baby. We've decided to just live on my husband's wage for the foreseeable future. It's a decent wage so it's not too difficult but we've still had to make some adjustments.

Bear in mind that you simply won't go out much when you have your baby. We've saved loads by not going out for meals/cinema etc. We're also trying to buy fewer clothes - which is not difficult actually; it's far more fun now to buy stuff for the baby!

I don't know what your lifestyle is like now and whether you're prolific spenders or already on a tight budget but, provided the bills are paid, personally I'd rather have the time with my baby than the extra income. He's worth more than all the money in the world.

Horseunderwater

The best thing you can do apart from planning the income side is to sort out the mortgage and consider something like a fixed rate deal if you are buying which will give you a certainty of main outgoing over the period of the one salary. Add in Council tax current + say 10% over next 2 years. Add in TV license costs £145.50 now but will go up soon. Those are the outgoings that are 100% essential - 2 of those you could be fined/jailed for if not paid.
The next thing to do is look at your heating costs/energy consumption for the home you own/rent. I use a prepayment meter for both of mine with standard tariff, because I do not like the thought that one of those companies can just increase my DD whenever they feel like it. So I know almost to the penny how much I pay out each week. I realise that this is not the way for most people, but judging by the amount of complaints about that very thing makes me think I've done right thing. Can you use ec 7 electricity? I do. Can you learn to switch everything off standby - I do. Saves loads over a year. Charging stuff up over night after 1.30am saves me a lot as well. Can be done by time delay plugs.
Outgoings:
Rent/Mortgage - Countcil tax - TV - Gas/Oil/Electricity - Phone(land/mobile) - Water - Insurance (Home/car/pet?) - Car fuel/servicing/MOT - Food.
Non essentials:
Store/credit card debts Get them down as much as you can and as quickly as you can. If you can go for a balance transfer and get interest free for 22 months(tesco doing 22 months + 6 months puchase interest free(pay min/month), Barclaycard 22 months int free. Martin calls it stoozing - it works. The small fee involved soon pays for itself.
Make your own sandwiches etc and take a flask into work for that morning coffee. Last time I bought a costa coffee it cost us £8 for 2 of them on the motorway. And they were awful. Def not essential.
Basically just review and set a proper budget now and keep to it. Extra money saved can be put away for the baby as and when. And finally may I say good luck and have a nice future.

Mrs_Arcanum

Breastfeed - then you only have to think about adult food for the first few months. Don't forget you should get child benefit, Not much admittedly but it does help.

anderson8

Mrs_Arcanum wrote: »

Breastfeed - then you only have to think about adult food for the first few months.

i second that, and also you dont need to get everything new have a look to see if there are any nearly new sales near you

podperson

It depends on your OH's income. If he is on a low income then you may get a small amount of housing/council tax benefit. You may also be able to claim tax credits and you will get child benefit when the baby is born.
As mentioned above apart from the initial items to buy then when they're small they don't cost that much - especially if you can breastfeed. You can get a lot of things like clothes very cheap secondhand - used baby clothes are often in great condition as they grow so quickly at that age they often only wear things a few times.

Mojisola

Blee88 wrote: »

Any advice on living on one income with and what it is like?

You could try a "dry run". Put your details through one of the benefits check websites as if you had a baby and only had your OH's wage coming in and see what benefits you may be entitled to.

Take that amount out of your wages and put the rest into savings every month.

Work your way through the boards on here which will help you reduce unnecessary spending - Old Style, Debt Free, etc. If you do a Statement of Affairs, others will suggest ways to reduce outgoings.

After a few months you will be able to see whether you can manage and, if you decide to go ahead with a pregnancy, you will have learned how to cope on a lower income well before baby arrives and will also have some savings for a rainy day.